The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery is a British film comedy set in the fictional
St Trinian's School, released in 1966, three years after the
Great Train Robbery had taken place. It also parodies the
technocratic ideas of the
Harold Wilson government and its support of the
comprehensive school system.
"Alphonse" Askett (Frankie Howerd) is a hairdresser who is also the operational leader of a gang of crooks who are led behind the scenes by an invisible mastermind (voiced by Stratford Johns). He gives instructions to Askett about the robbery, Operation Windfall, using a variety of
James Bond-like communications devices—including a converted showerhead.
The crooks hide the loot in Hamingwell Grange, a deserted country mansion, and after waiting for the hue and cry to die down they return to collect the numerous mailbags which contain ÂŁ2.5 million (the same amount as in the real robbery). However, following a
Labour Party election triumph, the house has been converted into a new home for St Trinian's School for Girls. The crooks decide to infiltrate the school by sending Askett's delinquent daughters, Lavinia and Marcia Mary, to St Trinian's as pupils, with instructions to case the joint to find a means of recovering the money, secretly, from its hiding place. The crooks' subsequent attempt to retrieve the mailbags on
Parents' Day, disguised as caterers, results in a climactic train chase between the robbers and the girls